My love of papercrafts started around 20 years ago as a way of preserving memories for my children. In the digital age it is all too easy for photographs to sit on our cameras or on our computers and never see the light of day before technology then fails and they are lost all together. Mini albums are a lovely way of having a record that is technology proof, a coffee table flip through book or a brag book for our relatives. For my make this time I chose to use the wonderful Vintage Bisou Papers and a pre-made canvas album base.
My project actually used 2 packs of the papers, the envelope sheet, the extras sheet, project life pack x 2, die cut element sheet x 2 and the words sheet.
I edged all of my pieces with vintage photo distress oxide and added text and butterfly stamping using the same ink
The base of 1/2 of the pages were made by cutting pieces of paper approximately 1 cm smaller than the page. The remaining pages were formed with a flap by cutting the paper in half horizontally and folding 10 cm from one end the side depending on which way I wanted the flap to open.
I then created two different styles of waterfall pages - one vertical and one horizontal. To do this I used the off cuts from the pages that I had used to create the base layer, I scored these 1 cm from the top to make a flap and then cut corresponding slots in the base paper into which I could slip the flap and secure it in place.
I decorated the central pair of pages by creating a pop up element in the center - I cut a piece of paper approximately 15 cm high by 10 cm wide and scored it vertically in the center and at 2 cm from each long edge. I then cut a slit in the central fold before adhering the two side pieces each side of my album creating a tent fold which accommodated the spine width. I then fussy cut elements out and used acetate to attach them inside the slit so that they floated free. Before adhering the base paper over these pages I created single flaps.
I decorated my pages using the co-ordinating elements, small metal embellishments from my stash and some chipboard pieces.
The front cover of my album was creating by layering paper elements with chipboard clocks background and a paper clay frame coloured with gold paste.
This album will comfortably because of all of the flaps hold at least 50 photographs and depending on the papers you use could be easily used to document a special holiday, birthday or celebration. If you have not made a memory album before then a pre-made album base makes an easy starting point for what at first glance may seem like a daunting project - but with a little planning and papercutting really is a very doable project.
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